Free Fall

by Robert Crais

  Mark Thurman tried to shove the door shut. He was big, and strong, but he started the move too late and we had the angle.

  The door crashed open, and Joe Pike went in first and I went in after him. Thurman threw a fast straight right, but it was high over Joe Pike's left shoulder. Pike hit Mark Thurman three times in maybe four-tenths of a second. Once in the neck and twice in the solar plexus.

  Mark Thurman made a choking sound, then sat down and grabbed at his throat.

  Somewhere deeper in the house a voice called, "Who is it, Mark?"

  I called back. "Mark lost his voice, Jennifer. Better come out here and give him a hand."

  CHAPTER 27

  Jennifer Sheridan came out of a door off the back of the entry and saw Mark Thurman on the floor. When she saw Thurman she ran to him, yelling, "What did you do to him?"

  Pike said, "Hit him."

  We pulled Thurman to his feet and helped him into the living room. He tried to push away from us, but there wasn't a lot of umphf in it. I said, "Take it easy. We've got the gun."

  Jennifer gave confused. "What gun?"

  Pike showed her Mark's revolver, then stuck it in his belt. "Is anyone else here?"

  Jennifer followed us into the living room, hovering around Mark Thurman as we put him into a green Naugahyde Ez-E-Boy. "No. The house belongs to Mark's aunt, and she's away. That's why we're using it."

  Pike grunted approval, then pulled the drapes so that no one could see in from the street.

  Jennifer Sheridan touched Mark Thurman's face with her fingertips. His face was already starting to puff. "I'd better get some ice."

  He tried to push her away. "Goddamn it, why'd you tell them?"

  She stepped back. "I didn't."

  I said, "I'm a detective, Mark. I did a little detective work and found you." I told him about watching Akeem D'Muere's, and about picking up Dees and following him to Tommy's.

  Thurman tried to act like it was no big deal. "So what? That doesn't prove anything." He looked at Jennifer. "Jesus Christ, Jen, this guy is a wanted fugitive."

  She said, "No, Mark. He wants to help us. He got into trouble trying to help."

  Mark yelled, "Don't tell this guy anything." Panicked. "He's just making guesses. He doesn't know anything." He tried to push up from the chair, but Joe Pike shoved him down.

  I said, "I know that the Premier Pawn Shop is owned by Akeem D'Muere. I know that eleven weeks before Charles Lewis Washington died, D'Muere hired a security contractor called Atlas Security to install a hidden surveillance camera at the Premier." When I said it, his face dropped maybe a quarter of an inch. He tried not to show it, but there it was. "The camera was there when you guys pulled the sting. It would've recorded what happened." I felt like Perry Mason, laying out my summation for the court. Did that make Jennifer Delia Street

  ? Was Pike Paul Drake? "Akeem D'Muere has a tape of what happened that night, and because he has the tape he has you."

  Jennifer moved behind him and put her hand on his back. "It's killing him."

  "For Christ's sake, Jennifer, be quiet." He was looking scared.

  Jennifer said, "That's why it went so bad for us. They made him swear to keep quiet and he did, but he just isn't like that."

  Mark said, "Eric's taking care of it. Don't admit anything. What if he's wired?"

  Jennifer Sheridan pulled at him, trying to make him see, trying to make him come to his senses. "He's not wired and Eric's getting you into trouble." She turned from him and looked at me. "He thinks he's protecting them. He wasn't part of all that. He's not like the others."

  "Nothing happened, goddamn it." Thurman pointed at me. "I'm telling you that nothing happened."

  "Damn it, Mark," she shouted. "Stop protecting them. Stop lying for them."

  I said, "Leave him."

  They looked at me as if I'd fired a shot into the floor.

  I said, "He doesn't love you, Jennifer. He's willing to take you down with him, just because he isn't strong enough to stand up to the guys he works with."

  Mark Thurman boiled up out of the chair like an angry bull and hit me with his shoulder, driving me back across the living room. Jennifer Sheridan shrieked and yelled, "Mark," but then Pike was next to her, wrapping her in his arms.

  I stayed high on Thurman's shoulders and let him carry me across the room and into the wall. He was angry and scared and probably not thinking too well, but he was also large and strong. We hit the wall and he backed away to throw a punch, and when he did I spun left and kicked him on the right side of his face and then I slipped to the side, and kicked him behind the left knee. He went down. I could've kicked him on the outside of his knee and broken the ligaments, but I didn't want to do that. I said, "Don't be stupid, Mark. You're not helping you and you're not helping Jennifer."

  He shoved his way up and this time he sort of crabbed in sideways, like he wanted to box. He feinted with his left and threw a straight right and when he did, I pushed it past and snapped a side kick to his head that made him stumble back and drop his hands. I kicked him twice more, and punched him hard once in the solar plexus, and he went down. I'd hit him hard enough to keep him there.

  I squatted beside him and said, "You're going to listen to this."

  He shook his head. Like a five-year-old. His nose was swelling and there was a smear of blood along his lower lip.

  I said, "Eric Dees and Akeem D'Muere conspired to set me up for this dope bust. In the course of that action, Akeem D'Muere murdered James Edward Washington. That makes Dees a co-conspirator to murder."

  Thurman was breathing hard. Sucking deep breaths and letting them out.

  "You tried to keep all of this from Jennifer, but Jennifer hired me, and you finally brought her in. You told Jennifer about Charles Lewis Washington and Akeem D'Muere, and that means you've implicated her. You're a cop. You know what that means."

  Mark Thurman looked at her.

  "She's become an accessory after the fact to murder. She can be charged, and she can be tried. Do you see that? Do you see what you've done to her?"

  Jennifer Sheridan frowned. "Mark?"

  I said, "Who are you going to protect, boy? Eric Dees, or Jennifer?"

  Mark Thurman raised his hands as if he were about to say something, but the something didn't come and he lowered them. He looked from me to Jennifer Sheridan, and then back to me. He said, "It was Floyd."

  You'd know it was Floyd. It'd have to be.

  "I'm not even sure what happened. Floyd was hitting him, and then Pinkworth was hitting him, and he just died." Jennifer Sheridan knelt down beside him and put her hand on his arm.

  I said, "You told yourselves it was an accident. Everybody's thinking Rodney King, and you decide to cover up."

  He nodded. "Only a couple of days later, here comes the tape. Just like Rodney. Only this time the bad guys had the tape, and not the good guys. Akeem had the tape."

  There was quiet in the small house.

  Jennifer Sheridan said, "He went along because he didn't know what else to do. You can see that, can't you?"

  I didn't answer.

  "He didn't do it for himself. Don't you see that?"

  I looked at Pike and Pike looked at me.

  Mark Thurman said, "What are you going to do?"

  I shook my head. "I don't know."

  He said, "It was just an accident." I looked at him and he wasn't a cop anymore. He was a big handsome kid who looked confused and scared, and more than a little bit lost. He said, "I dream about it every night, and I just don't know. It got out of hand, and we didn't know what to do. Even Floyd was surprised. Floyd didn't expect to kill him. It just happened." He tried to think of another way to say it. His mouth opened and closed a couple of more times. His brow knotted. Then he just shook his head.

  "So you decided to protect each other."

  "You think I'm proud of this? You think I don't see that poor guy? Jesus God, I don't know what to do." He was shaking his head. Jennifer Sheridan looked like she
wanted to hold him and take care of him and make it all better even though she knew it was wrong. Maybe that's what love is.

  I said, "How many copies of the tape are there?"

  "We got one. I don't know how many D'Muere has. Maybe a million."

  "Who has the copy you saw?"

  "Eric." Jennifer Sheridan put out her hand and Mark Thurman took it. Jennifer smiled, and Mark Thurman smiled back at her. They looked relieved, as if by finally sharing this the weight was becoming bearable. Mark said, "I know where he hides it."

  I took a deep breath and then I let it out. I felt tired and my back hurt where the muscles lace over the shoulder blades. Tension, I guess. Stress.

  Jennifer Sheridan said, "Will you help him?"

  I looked at Jennifer Sheridan looking at me and I nodded. "Okay," I said. "I want to see the tape."

  CHAPTER 28

  Jennifer Sheridan helped Mark Thurman to the couch and sat next to him. He could've made it on his own this time, but he let her help.

  I said, "Has everyone on the REACT team seen the tape?"

  "Yeah."

  "Has anyone else?"

  He shook his head. "Not on our side. Who would we show it to?"

  Pike went to the window and looked out the curtain. He said, "Eric would have a plan. Akeem pops up with the tape, says do what I want or I burn you, Eric isn't going to just roll over."

  Thurman nodded. "Eric said we should play along until we could find something to make Akeem back off."

  "Like what?"

  "We started running intelligence on him and doing twenty-four-hour surveillance. We even went out and bought these video cameras. We figured if we got him doing a capital offense on tape, we could trade him. You burn us, we burn you, like that."

  Pike moved to the other side of the window and looked out the curtain from that side. "Dorks."

  Thurman gave him hard. "Hey, what would you do?"

  Pike didn't bother to look at him, "I wouldn't be where you are. I wouldn'tve killed Charles Lewis Washington, and then lied about it. I would've done the right thing."

  Jennifer Sheridan frowned. "You don't need to be so harsh."

  I said, "A man died, Jennifer. It doesn't get much harsher than that."

  She put her hand on Mark Thurman's thigh.

  I said, "Okay. So you were looking for something to press Akeem. Did you get anything?"

  "Not yet."

  "So the five of you went along with him, committing crimes."

  "That's right." Thurman made a tiny nod, the kind where your head barely moves, and he wouldn't look at me.

  "And Eric figured you guys would keep on like that until you found something to use against Akeem?"

  "Yeah."

  "Committing crimes."

  "Yeah." He stared at the floor and looked even more ashamed. He was a guy with a lot to be ashamed of.

  Jennifer said, "Why do you have to keep asking him about these things? He feels bad enough."

  I said, "I have to ask him because I don't know the answers. I have to know what he's done so that I'll know how to help him or even if I can help him. Do you see?"

  She saw, but she didn't like it. "I thought you said that you'd help."

  "I'm deciding. Maybe I'll help him, but maybe I won't. Maybe I can't."

  She liked that even less. I looked back at Thurman, and then I stood up. "Where does Dees keep the tape?"

  "He's got it hidden in his garage."

  "You know where?"

  "Yeah. If he hasn't moved it."

  "Let's go see."

  We took Thurman's Mustang, and Thurman drove. Joe Pike stayed with Jennifer Sheridan.

  Forty-two minutes later we left the freeway in Glendale and turned onto a pleasant residential street lined with mature trees and sidewalks and the sort of modest middle-class houses that more suggested Indiana or Iowa than Southern California. Mark Thurman said, "Are you sure about this?"

  "I'm sure. Which one?"

  Thurman pointed out a white frame Cape Cod with a tiny front yard and a couple of nice magnolia trees and lots of surrounding shrubbery. The drive ran along the left side of the house to the garage. Like the rest of the houses on Dees's street, it was prewar, and the garage was detached. Someone had bolted a basketball goal above the garage door, and the net was yellowed and frayed. It had been there a long time. Thurman said, "We can't just ask him, you know."

  "We're not going to ask him. We're going to steal it."

  Thurman nodded and frowned, like he knew I was going to say that. "What if it's not there?"

  "If it's not there, we'll find out where it is, and then we'll figure a way to get it from there." A 1984 Nissan 4x4 sport truck sat in the drive beneath the basketball goal. One of those heavy roll bars with a row of lights across the top was mounted in the bed behind the cab, and the suspension was jacked up about eight inches too high so the little truck could sport oversized knobby tires. "Who belongs to the truck?"

  "Eric Junior. I guess he's home from school."

  "How about Mrs. Dees? Would she be home?"

  Thurman cruised past the house without my having to tell him. "She works at Glendale General. She's a nurse, but I don't know if she works today, or when she gets home, or any of that."

  "Okay."

  "Would the kid recognize you?"

  "Yeah, I think so. I've been here a few times, but not many."

  "How about the neighbors?"

  He shook his head. "No."

  We K-turned in someone's drive, went back, and parked one house away on the driveway side. I said, "I'm going to see what the boy's up to. You're going to wait for my signal, then go into the garage and get the tape."

  Thurman looked nervous. "Jesus Christ, it's broad daylight."

  "During the day, we look like we belong. At night, we look like crooks. You're a cop."

  "Well. Sure."

  "Give me the keys."

  He looked at me, then he took out the keys and gave them over. I put them in my pocket, then got out of the car and went up the Dees's sidewalk to the front door. I pretended to ring the bell, though I didn't, and then I pretended to knock, though I didn't do that, either. If the neighbors were watching, it would look good for them.

  I stood at the door and listened, and heard voices deep in the house, but they were the kind of voices that come from a television, and not from real people. The front door was under an overhang, and there was a long brick veranda that ran along the front of the house under the overhang, and a couple of large frame windows. The windows were open to let in the light. I went to the near window and looked in and tried to see the boy and the television, but I couldn't. The way the hall and the entry were laid out from the living room, it was a good bet that the boy and the TV were on the side of the house opposite from the garage. I went back to the edge of the porch and motioned to Thurman. He got out and went down the drive to the garage, and he didn't look happy about it. I stood by the front windows and watched. If the boy came through the house, I could always knock on the door for real and pretend like I was selling aluminum siding. If Mrs. Dees drove up, I could pretend I was a real estate agent, and make a big deal out of listing her house, and maybe keep her away from the garage until Thurman made his getaway. If Eric Dees drove up, maybe I could run like hell before he shot me to death. There are always options.

  It didn't take Mark Thurman long.

  Less than three minutes later he came back along the driveway, and made a short quiet whistle to get my attention. When I looked, he held up an ordinary TDK half-inch VHS cassette. I walked away from the front door and got back into the Mustang maybe ten seconds after Mark Thurman.

  He sat behind the wheel in the keyless Mustang with both hands on the cassette. He held it tightly. "Now what?"

  We went to the motel.

  The sky had turned a deep violet by the time we got into Santa Monica, and the air was cooling nicely. The room had a VCR hooked to the TV, and that's where we'd screen the tape.

&nbs
p; Thurman said, "Is this where you've been holed up?"

  "Yeah." Like we were outlaws.

  When we got into the room, Thurman looked around and saw the three left over Thai beers. They were warm. "Say, could I have one of those?"

  "Sure."

  "You?" He held out a bottle.

  "No."

  I turned on the TV. Nightly News with Peter Jennings came on, and I loaded the cassette. Peter Jennings vanished in a flash of static, and a grainy high-angle shot of the interior of the Premier Pawn Shop filled the screen. Black and white. A muscular black guy maybe in his late twenties sat in a swivel chair behind the counter, watching a tiny TV. He wore a white Arrow shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and his hair was cut close with a couple of racing stripes carved above each ear. Charles Lewis Washington. There was no one else in the shop.

  As I watched, Mark Thurman came up behind me and drank deep on the beer. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, not fast like he had to pee, but enough to show he wasn't comfortable. He said, "There's a lot of this kind of stuff at first."

  "Okay."

  "We could maybe fast forward it."

  "Let's just watch."

  He went to the machine and turned it off. "Look, this isn't easy."

  "I know."

  "You don't have to treat me like a piece of shit."

  I stared at him for maybe ten seconds. "It doesn't matter if I like you or not, and it doesn't matter how I treat you or not. Whatever it is that I'm doing, I'm doing for Jennifer. Not for you."

  Mark Thurman stared at me for another couple of seconds, then he said, "Can I have another of those beers?"

  I turned on the VCR and watched the rest of the tape. Mark Thurman went into the bathroom and drank.

  CHAPTER 29

  The image was sort of overexposed and blurry, and not nearly as nice as your basic home video. From the angle the camera must've been maybe nine or ten feet up, and was mounted so that it framed the length of the shop.

  The tape ran without incident for another couple of minutes before Floyd Riggens and Warren Pinkworth entered from the bottom of the frame. There was no sound. Charles Lewis got out of his chair and went to the counter, and the three of them spoke for a few minutes. Then Pinkworth took two cardboard boxes out of his pocket and put them on the counter. Each box was about the size of a bar of soap, but they weren't Ivory. Washington opened the top box and shook out twenty rounds of what looked to be 5.56mm rifle cartridges. Same kind of stuff you pop in an M-16. He examined the bullets, and then he put them back into the box and pushed both boxes toward Pinkworth. The three of them talked some more, and Riggens left the frame. In a couple of minutes he came back, only now Pete Garcia was with him, carrying a pretty good-sized pasteboard box. It looked heavy. Garcia put the larger box on the counter and Charles Lewis looked inside. Whatever was there, you couldn't see it, but it was probably more of the little cardboard ammo boxes. Washington nodded as if he were agreeing to something, and when he did Riggens and Garcia and Pinkworth were all screaming and pulling out badges and guns. Charles Lewis Washington jumped back so far that he fell over the swivel chair. Riggens went over the counter after him. Riggens raised his pistol twice and brought it down twice, and then he jerked Washington to his feet and moved to hit him again. Washington covered up and pulled away. The narrow aisle behind the counter opened into the shop, and Washington, still holding his arms over his head, stumbled from behind the counter and into Pete Garcia. Maybe you could say it looked like he was attacking Garcia, but it didn't look like that to me. It looked like Washington was trying to get away from Riggens. Garcia hit Washington on the upper back and the arms four times, and then pushed him down. Pinkworth was pointing his gun in a two-handed combat stance, and shouting, and he stomped at Washington's head and back. Riggens came from behind the counter and waded in beside Pinkworth. Garcia was pointing his gun at Washington's head. Washington seemed to reach for him and Garcia kicked at his arm. At the bottom of the screen, Mark Thurman ran in wearing a tee shirt that said POLICE on the front and back. He stopped beside Garcia and aimed his gun, also in the two-handed combat stance. Charles Lewis Washington pushed up to his knees and held out his right arm like maybe he was begging Riggens and Pinkworth to stop. They didn't. Washington rolled into sort of a ball, but Riggens continued to hit him. Thurman started forward, then stopped and said something to Garcia, but Garcia made a hand move telling him to stay back. Thurman lowered his gun and stepped back. He looked confused.